I remember when I was first introduced to Kurt Vonnegut. Mr. Guthrie was the common friend between the two of us. He was teaching a course on philosophy or something (no matter the class, he always seems to work abstract thought in, to my delight) in Project Excellence and happened to mention Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron.” I believe I was in sixth grade, but years bleed into one another for me. The point is, I was pretty young. I remember thinking, “Kurt Vonnegut? Must be some Russian guy.” Didn’t think much of it. Mr. Guthrie described the story and it sounded interesting, but I hadn’t given it much thought. A couple of months later, my favorite uncle, Daniel, mentioned “Harrison Bergeron,” wondering if I had ever read it. I said no and came out of the subsequent scolding with the impression that I should read it. Uncle Dan would probably deny his ever giving me a sermon on reading “literature with substance” and not that “lateral mystery junk” I was into at the time, but Uncle Dan goes to Confession a lot. He won’t admit it, but he does. I’m onto your “Coffee Bean” code, Uncle Dan. Plus, he’s studying to become a priest, so he has to get all of his lying out now.
Anyway, I thought the story was magnificent the first time I read it. My mind was in a whirl for literally three days after reading it. Okay, maybe not literally, but metaphorically. Sometimes I exaggerate. “Harrison Bergeron” was one of those stories that I always told myself I needed to write the name down so I wouldn’t forget, but never actually did so. Subsequently, I forgot the title and the author’s name. I would describe the story to people, wondering if they had read it and recalled the name, but all I got was blank stares. Apparently, “it was about the preposterousness of equality and the guy’s name was Russian” isn’t much help to some people. Years passed and, with it, the memory of the story. If my love affair with Vonnegut had ended there, it would’ve been a tragedy. Thankfully, it’s not!
Vonnegut popped up again as I was browsing the local Barnes and Noble a year or so ago. I had gift cards left over from Christmas (a miracle!) and was ready to pay full price for a book (another miracle!). T it so happened was listed close to V at that store. I had been looking at Twain books, of course, but was considering expanding my horizons. After all, this was a special occasion. I was going to pay full price for a book. If I’m going halfway out of my usual habit, why not all the way? I was feeling risky—I might even say alive, but I won’t. It was destiny. The first book I picked up by Vonnegut was Player Piano. I looked over the back, mildly interested. There it was, a review that gave my heart to him right away: “Vonnegut’s writing harkens back to the dark humor of Twain.” Or something like that anyway. More grand, probably. I was sold. That book was sold. Everything was sold. It was love at first review that mentioned Twain?
Imagine my delight when I re-discovered “Harrison Bergeron” while looking through the literature textbook over the summer. The story is so quintessentially Vonnegut that I just want to hug it and go, “Aw, Kurt, you’re such a humanist!” “Bergeron” challenges everyday thought with a dark twist of humor and a haunting message, just like most of Vonnegut’s writing.
What I love the most about “Bergeron” is the difference Vonnegut emphasizes between equality and equality of opportunity. Americans tend to call for equality. I argue with my mom about this sometimes. “Mom, no, not total equality. Just equality of opportunity. That’s what America’s about. That’s what the founding father’s meant,” I say. Mom shakes her head and continues about some feminist thing. Probably about the fire department again. See, the fire department has different requirements for women than they do for men. The female requirements are easier. Women have to do fewer pushups and pull-ups and all that kind of stuff to make it into the department. I say this is wrong, unjust. If women want to claim they’re just as good as men in every way, why should the requirements be different? Mom claims this just makes it fair for women. It makes it equal. To me, this is “Harrison Bergeron” in action. We never agree. (756)
I realize this blog is rather disjointed and scattered, but I like to think that it is merely Vonnegut’s influence seeping into my writing, especially since I’ve been reading so much of him lately. I know this blog also didn’t have a whole lot to do with the ideas discussed in class, but I felt it was relevant. Hope you don’t mind. Oh, and I did discover that "Vonnegut" is German-based, not Russian.
So it goes.
September 27, 2007
September 20, 2007
The Blind Leading the Blind
Most would have to say that “Cathedral” is pretty literal, fairly exemplary of Carver’s minimalist tendencies. There isn’t a ton of symbolism in the text—at least, not the way I read it and it’s certainly no “Revelation”—and the reader doesn’t necessarily have to dissect the dialogue to discover the jealousy of the husband, who never receives a name. But Carver uses symbolism very effectively when he does employ it. His symbolism in “Cathedral” is poignant, though scarce, and emphasizes the undertones of the short story. Robert impresses me the most when it comes to Carver’s symbolism skill. Robert embodies the husband’s insecurities and leads him from blindness to sight throughout their encounter.
Right off the bat, the husband expresses his distaste for Robert’s visit. In the first paragraph, the husband frankly says that he “wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit” and specifically points out that Robert was “no one [he] knew.” The husband’s jealousy is not yet apparent, but one starts to sense it in his disgusted fascination with Robert’s touching the husband’s wife and even with their tape correspondence. If anything, the husband is defensive. He latches onto the fact that Robert is blind, claiming a prejudice against them.
I get the sense that he is just looking for a flaw in Robert and doesn’t have an actual problem with blind people. This sense is strengthened when the husband starts to talk about his wife’s childhood sweetheart. Immediately, the husband starts to bash him, to lower the sweetheart to below his level. The narrator starts into a slightly disjointed story with vague details, apparently intending to give the impression that it all wasn’t a big deal to him. Yet, he takes shots at “the officer-to-be,” “the man who’d first enjoyed her favors” (4). Once when speaking about the officer, the husband says, “Her officer—why should he have a name? he was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want?” (5). That’s pretty defensive. Then, the husband refocuses on Robert. He first goes after Robert’s wife: “Beulah! That’s a name for a colored woman.” Apparently, he’s a racist now too. Next he attacks the little wedding Robert and Beulah had, asking “who’d want to go to such a wedding in the first place?” (15). Next comes a slew of criticisms from the husband extending from what Robert was left with after Beulah dies—Pathetic!—to Robert’s beard that was altogether too much. It’s clear by the time the husband, wife, and Robert sit down to dinner that the husband is far less than pleased with Robert’s presence.
The criticisms the husband makes of Robert illuminates the husbands greatest insecurity: his relationship with his wife. The attacks on Robert are the products of this insecurity. The husband’s insecurity is not directly spoken about in his narration. This insecurity is discerned only through little lines in the story combined with the attacks on Robert. When the trio sits down on the couch in the living room, the husband says something rather revealing: “My wife finally took her eyes off the blind man and looked at me. I had the feeling she didn’t like what she saw” (102). After dinner, we again see a hint that the husband isn’t completely confident with his relationship with his wife. As the wife and Robert are chatting away and catching up as old friends do, the husband bemoans how he “waited in vain to hear [his] name on [his] wife’s sweet lips: ‘And then my dear husband came into my life’—something like that” but heard nothing of the sort (45). The husband’s insecurity in his marriage is magnified by Robert (at least to the husband) and this insecurity blinds him to the great, kind man Robert is, minimizing Robert to simply a blind man.
It is when Robert’s interaction with the wife ends that the husband starts to see who Robert really is. The wife falls asleep and the pair is left all alone. What on earth is the husband going to talk to a blind man who married a woman named Beulah about? Cathedrals, of course. A show about cathedrals comes on the television and it turns out Robert has no idea what they look like. Robert asks the husband to describe cathedrals to him. The husband is incapable of doing so sufficiently. Here is where Robert really steps in symbolically. Robert asks the husband to draw a cathedral while Robert holds his hand to feel the motions. Robert is in fact inviting the husband to see past his jealousy, his insecurity. At the end of the story, the husband can now see.
Robert is essential to the gaining of the husband’s sight. Robert is the one who cures the husband’s blindness by sharing his own inability to physically see. The husband no longer sees Robert as a blind man, but as a man who is blind.
Right off the bat, the husband expresses his distaste for Robert’s visit. In the first paragraph, the husband frankly says that he “wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit” and specifically points out that Robert was “no one [he] knew.” The husband’s jealousy is not yet apparent, but one starts to sense it in his disgusted fascination with Robert’s touching the husband’s wife and even with their tape correspondence. If anything, the husband is defensive. He latches onto the fact that Robert is blind, claiming a prejudice against them.
I get the sense that he is just looking for a flaw in Robert and doesn’t have an actual problem with blind people. This sense is strengthened when the husband starts to talk about his wife’s childhood sweetheart. Immediately, the husband starts to bash him, to lower the sweetheart to below his level. The narrator starts into a slightly disjointed story with vague details, apparently intending to give the impression that it all wasn’t a big deal to him. Yet, he takes shots at “the officer-to-be,” “the man who’d first enjoyed her favors” (4). Once when speaking about the officer, the husband says, “Her officer—why should he have a name? he was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want?” (5). That’s pretty defensive. Then, the husband refocuses on Robert. He first goes after Robert’s wife: “Beulah! That’s a name for a colored woman.” Apparently, he’s a racist now too. Next he attacks the little wedding Robert and Beulah had, asking “who’d want to go to such a wedding in the first place?” (15). Next comes a slew of criticisms from the husband extending from what Robert was left with after Beulah dies—Pathetic!—to Robert’s beard that was altogether too much. It’s clear by the time the husband, wife, and Robert sit down to dinner that the husband is far less than pleased with Robert’s presence.
The criticisms the husband makes of Robert illuminates the husbands greatest insecurity: his relationship with his wife. The attacks on Robert are the products of this insecurity. The husband’s insecurity is not directly spoken about in his narration. This insecurity is discerned only through little lines in the story combined with the attacks on Robert. When the trio sits down on the couch in the living room, the husband says something rather revealing: “My wife finally took her eyes off the blind man and looked at me. I had the feeling she didn’t like what she saw” (102). After dinner, we again see a hint that the husband isn’t completely confident with his relationship with his wife. As the wife and Robert are chatting away and catching up as old friends do, the husband bemoans how he “waited in vain to hear [his] name on [his] wife’s sweet lips: ‘And then my dear husband came into my life’—something like that” but heard nothing of the sort (45). The husband’s insecurity in his marriage is magnified by Robert (at least to the husband) and this insecurity blinds him to the great, kind man Robert is, minimizing Robert to simply a blind man.
It is when Robert’s interaction with the wife ends that the husband starts to see who Robert really is. The wife falls asleep and the pair is left all alone. What on earth is the husband going to talk to a blind man who married a woman named Beulah about? Cathedrals, of course. A show about cathedrals comes on the television and it turns out Robert has no idea what they look like. Robert asks the husband to describe cathedrals to him. The husband is incapable of doing so sufficiently. Here is where Robert really steps in symbolically. Robert asks the husband to draw a cathedral while Robert holds his hand to feel the motions. Robert is in fact inviting the husband to see past his jealousy, his insecurity. At the end of the story, the husband can now see.
Robert is essential to the gaining of the husband’s sight. Robert is the one who cures the husband’s blindness by sharing his own inability to physically see. The husband no longer sees Robert as a blind man, but as a man who is blind.
September 14, 2007
Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies” is a short story that focuses on the formation of first impressions based on hopes, rather than facts and observances. But the thing I find most interesting about the story is what links the two protagonists’ hopes: the different effects a son has on each other are the sources of both of their hopes. The Das marriage and the Kapasi marriage suffer tension because of a son in each marriage.
Mr. Kapasi has a son who dies of typhoid. That’s friction enough in a marriage, right? Sure, but Kapasi isn’t lucky enough to just have a son die of typhoid. On top of Mr. and Mrs. Kapasi’s marriage being arranged and having a son die early on, Kapasi takes on a job as an interpreter for a doctor. Kapasi acknowledges that his wife is “reminded of the son she’d lost” because of his job and “resented the other lives he helped, in his own small way, to save” (585). Mrs. Kapasi never speaks favorably of Mr. Kapasi’s job. This tension in their marriage, caused in the end by their son, breeds a desperation for validation, for approval, of his occupation and of, ultimately, his own failings in Mr. Kapasi’s heart. So when Mrs. Das says Mr. Kapasi’s job is “a big responsibility” and “romantic” (584), Kapasi leaps at the appearance of, what he believes to be, the solution to all of his emotional deficiencies. Mr. Kapasi automatically applies all of the solutions to his problems to Mrs. Das simply because she has the faintest potential to be the accepting love he’s longed for all this time. He, of course, disregards her apparent romantic disinterest in him because he so desperately needs her to be the fulfillment of his deficiencies.
Mrs. Das does not have a son who dies, but the son of a man other than Mr. Das. Mrs. Das is filled with guilt, though she terms it pain, in having cheated on her husband and having a child other than his. Of course, she has not told him. The birth of her son fills her with guilt, a guilt she’s been carrying for eight years. She claims she has “terrible urges . . . to throw things away” and that she feels “so terrible all the time” (591). This “pain” induces a necessity for forgiveness, for cleansing in Mrs. Das. She goes through the following eight years searching for someone to pour her secret out who will give her the forgiveness and cleansing she needs. When she discovers Mr. Kapasi is an interpreter of maladies, she believes she has found her baptismal fountain at last.
Mr. Kapasi has a son who dies of typhoid. That’s friction enough in a marriage, right? Sure, but Kapasi isn’t lucky enough to just have a son die of typhoid. On top of Mr. and Mrs. Kapasi’s marriage being arranged and having a son die early on, Kapasi takes on a job as an interpreter for a doctor. Kapasi acknowledges that his wife is “reminded of the son she’d lost” because of his job and “resented the other lives he helped, in his own small way, to save” (585). Mrs. Kapasi never speaks favorably of Mr. Kapasi’s job. This tension in their marriage, caused in the end by their son, breeds a desperation for validation, for approval, of his occupation and of, ultimately, his own failings in Mr. Kapasi’s heart. So when Mrs. Das says Mr. Kapasi’s job is “a big responsibility” and “romantic” (584), Kapasi leaps at the appearance of, what he believes to be, the solution to all of his emotional deficiencies. Mr. Kapasi automatically applies all of the solutions to his problems to Mrs. Das simply because she has the faintest potential to be the accepting love he’s longed for all this time. He, of course, disregards her apparent romantic disinterest in him because he so desperately needs her to be the fulfillment of his deficiencies.
Mrs. Das does not have a son who dies, but the son of a man other than Mr. Das. Mrs. Das is filled with guilt, though she terms it pain, in having cheated on her husband and having a child other than his. Of course, she has not told him. The birth of her son fills her with guilt, a guilt she’s been carrying for eight years. She claims she has “terrible urges . . . to throw things away” and that she feels “so terrible all the time” (591). This “pain” induces a necessity for forgiveness, for cleansing in Mrs. Das. She goes through the following eight years searching for someone to pour her secret out who will give her the forgiveness and cleansing she needs. When she discovers Mr. Kapasi is an interpreter of maladies, she believes she has found her baptismal fountain at last.
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